I have been in the market for a laptop to replace my 6 year old netbook but I am on a tight budget. On Amazon, however, they are selling Thinkpads with i5s and 8GB of RAM for around the 200 dollar mark. They have ok reviews and are powerful enough for what I want to do but does anyone know what owning a ~5 year old Thinkpad will be like in 2018?
My ThinkPad T420 does what I want it to (light web browsing and the like). Modern gaming is definitely not what it's made for, even though mine has the NVIDIA NVS 4200M and 1600x900 screen. Light gaming, yes, but Dirt 3 for example runs so slow and makes the temperatures rise way higher than I'd like, even on lowest settings. The TrackPoint is awesome, I much prefer it to a trackpad. Overall, I like my T420 a lot, but that may be because it's my first laptop that wasn't impaired in some way that makes it inconvenient to use. I know that @Eastham would have more knowledge on them, as they have a few.
Indeed. Something Like a T420 or a T410 will run perfectly fine Just don't expect them to be able to run extensive 3D programs, after all they're reliable business machines not gaming machines. The downside to a *10 ThinkPad is that they don't support Msata SSD's so a *20 series or above would be better, install a Msata SSD with a 1TB storage drive which is what I've done with my T440P only it uses a M.2 drive being slightly more modern. The first number in the model number denotes screen size so a X220 will have a 12" screen a T420 will have a 14" etc. The second number denotes the series usually coinciding with the series Intel Processor for instance, @mumboking's T420 is a 14" with a 2nd gen Sandy bridge Processor, my T440P is a 14" with a 4th gen Haswell Processor. The X series ThinkPads are small and portable "12 to "13, the T series are the Business jets, 14" to "15, easy to maintain, functional and built to be as dependable as possible, the W series are the workstation workhorses, built to be a reliable power house on the go, "15 or "17, They're heavy and bulky but powerfull, if you want a ThinkPad to run any games the W series is what you want. Those are the only series ThinkPads that really matter IMO.
I'm not looking to run any games on it except for SSF2 and SimplePlanes (not very demanding games), but I do want it to last me a couple years and also fit in a backpack.
Something like a T420 will be perfect then, avoid the T420 i version, the i means it's a basic low end version with a i3, T420 with a i5, 8 gigs of memory, bonus points if you get one with the Nvidia chipset. Add a Msata SSD and it will probably run Windows 10 better than most modern machines.
Though, you can upgrade the T420i to have an i5 or i7, as it has a socketed CPU. There are two different screen resolutions that the T420 can come with: 1366x768 or 1600x900. Obviously, I'd go for the higher resolution. OH! And make sure that any BIOS passwords haven't been set.
Yep very important you make sure the ThinkPad doesn't have a Supervisor password set, it will stop you from being able to change BIOS settings or a Hard disk password this will stop you from being able to boot the machine and removing the CMOS battery won't reset these passwords, only a replacement motherboard will work.
One last thing, make sure computrace has been disabled, otherwise the perevious company can remote access the machine and brick your OS if Computrace "Phones home".
